An adventure-seeking feminist academic blogging about travel, education, personal growth, and the need for societal change!

Finding space: moving on

If we weren’t moving to NYC and if we weren’t going on a month-long road trip across the country, I would be returning to work as a teacher today. I have mixed feelings. I picture my desk, in MY classroom, with a new teacher sitting there trying to figure out the best way to teach a bunch of teenagers how to be full-functioning adults who don’t quit after the first or fifth try at something, who don’t throw chairs when they’re upset, who ask questions when they’re confused. Goals. But I will miss teaching those angsty teenagers. They have so much emotion – about EVERYTHING. Such strong opinions – about EVERYTHING. Life flattens us sometimes as we age. Which is why we have to embrace it when life beckons us to move on.

I have no doubt that I am doing what I’m supposed to be doing right now. In 7th grade, when we had to come up with an experiment for the science fair, I decided to run a research study in various classrooms to prove my hypothesis that teachers call on boys to answer questions more often than they call on girls. I was incredibly proud of my first experiment (and my hypothesis was right, by the way). I don’t think anyone ever told me that I could actually do experiments just like that one as a JOB; in fact, my 7th grade science teacher told me that my experiment wasn’t “real science.” Maybe we should start respecting “social” sciences as still being REAL FUCKING SCIENCE. I think people are starting to make the connection though; afterall, I am entering a master’s program in Neuroscience and Education.

I am so ready for this.

With all the teachers going back to work today, it has become real. I am not going back. I am going on an adventure. First, through nature, and then throughout New York City. And I cannot fucking wait.